Defrost Thermostat

Called a friend that lead me down the right path so i did a search for the part's and found this site. The trouble shooting that outher's had done was the same as mine, I descovered that the coil's in the freezer had frozen up complety. They are located behind a plasic cover in the freezer area, it had frozen up due to the Defrost heater element being defective, when i took it out it was black and burnt looking,It is located at the bottom edge of the coils,2 bolt's and a plug in on each side. That is probally the only part i needed but i went ahead and replaced the sensor and timer also.The sensor wires in the freezer( located on the very top of the coils) had to be cut and the new ones spliced in, only 2 wires and easy access. I also put shrink wrap on the splices to protect them from mosisture. The timer was located in the fridge area by the temp. control knobs. 2 small bolts and a plug in was all on it. It's been 5 day's and so far so good. The worst part was defrosting the frozen coils. This was done with the wife's hair dryer and a couple towel's to soak up the water. Don't just let the water go down the drain hole because the tray that catches it will not hold all the water from the frozen coil's. Just a reminder, don't forget to unplug the unit when working on it. Hope this help's and was very easy install, Cost about $125 in part's and a couple hours of labor(did a good cleaning while it was eampty for the repair) Good luck.

I removed the back panel held in place by 5 screws. I located the thermostat and disconnected it from the wire connection to another part. Due to the connection requirement, I had to cut the wires from the original part and splice the connector with wires to the new part. After securing the spliced wires and covering in electrical tape, I replaced the panel and all screws.

Repair was very easy. First, be sure to turn the appliance off. I removed the 5 screws holding the panel in the back of the freezer. I used a hair dryer to thaw the condenser coils so I could access the heater and related wiring. I removed the 2 screws holding the heater in place and unplugged the heater. Plugged in the new heater and replaced everything in reverse order. I then cut the 2 wires to the defrost thermostat and removed it. I attached the new thermostat to the wires with wire nuts. Then replaced the cover in the freezer and turned everything back on. It is important to use the hair dryer to remove the ice from the condenser coils.

i turned off the fridge and unpluged it , took out all the shelfs in the freezer and took off the back panel to get to the heater , the heater is only held in with 2 screws and unhook the 2 wires and replace the heater , and then thermostate is on top of the coils , i just cut the 2 color coded wires and replace the theromstate , was easyer then i thought ,

Take the back panel off inside of freezer side. Cut the wires off old Defrost Thermostat and strip the ends. Attach the wires of the new one and tighten with wire nuts. Put back panel back on.

We had to empty the freezing section, remove the 4 screws that held the back panel and defrost the coils. Then with the diagram we got from the internet, we removed the defroster and easily installed the new one and put the back panel back on. We did find later that it was still icing over so I ordered the thermostat and we installed it today.
It too was easy to install. We spliced the wires and hooked the new thermostat to the old wires and reinstalled the back panel. Hopefully this will solve the problem for us now.

Your customer installation comments were very helpful. After unplugging the unit, I took out all the freezer shelfs and the back panel (4 screws). I hadn't realized the coils were also covered in solid ice. It took awhile to defrost with a hair dryer, and I needed to use more than one towel to soak up the melting ice. Locating and splicing in the new thermostat was very easy. I used "cold weather" electrical tape to splice the wires back together. After reassembling the back panel and shelfs, I snapped in a new light shield that had been broken for awhile. It's been over a week now, and I do not see any problems. Overall, it was a easy fix. Just took a little time to defrost the coils.

Sarah

rerfrigator side not cooling After determinating that the defrost timer was running I turned it to defrost and watched tosee if frost started to melt. When it didn't I checked the heater with ohmeter, checked OK, so the only other component in the defrost system is the thermostat. Then just a matter of cutting and splicing wires and snapping the new thermost in place

After a little research I realized my problem could be one or possibly two components of three that caused the problem. Instead of changing one at a time, I took another approach. I just bought and changed all three to save time and prevent having to do the job all over again. Each time I would have to melt the ice off of the cooling coils and this is time consuming and annoying having to melt the ice repeatedly. I put a very accurate thermometer in the fridge and have been monitoring it since I changed the components. After one week it seems to be working fine keeping the fridge at 34-38 degree F.